#144 - Why does Checks artwork keep changing? ✅

GM and welcome to Decentra Daily.

We're the newsletter that gives you a simple update on what's happening in the world of NFTs and web3.

We're like that high school teacher who made Shakespeare seem easy.

Today,

• What's up with Checks' ever-shifting art work?

• Memeland buys 8 nautical Bored Apes

• Ryan Carson does all the wrong things announcing Flux

Top 24 hr collection volume

via CoinMarketCap

1. Sewer Pass - 467 sales earning 1,434.09 ETH (0.06%)

2. BAYC - 10 sales earning 940.94 ETH (1.36%)

3. CryptoPunks - 4 sales earning 372.5 ETH (1.11%)

4. MAYC - 9 sales earning 145.9 ETH (0.01%)

5. The Potatoz - 75 sales earning 116.55 ETH (1.29%)

Here's why the artwork for Checks keeps changing (and the floor keeps rising)

Previously, on Checks...

Jack Butcher's Checks NFT collection – featuring grids of 80 colored verification marks – launched as an $8 open edition back in January.

Over 16,000 were snapped up.

Deploying his marketing nous, Jack then encouraged his community to start posting derivatives and references to his artwork – unleashing the power of memes to spread awareness.

It worked. The floor price started to rise.

The memes kept on coming. The floor price kept increasing.

Cut to a few weeks later, and the Checks floor has now broken 2 ETH.

The ATH sale is over 50 ETH. Bruh.

So what's going on here? Well, Checks has a sleek, accessible, and meaningful aesthetic.

It also has a neat (as yet dormant) burn mechanism that gives people something to look forward to, creating a sense that there's more profit/activity to come.

– but, the main reason Checks is taking over web3 culture right now is that it embraces back-and-forth conversation.

So much so, Jack Butcher has actually been altering the metadata of the collection in response to community memes.

After blue checks, we've had checks in different color variations, checks with different backgrounds, and we're currently on this dapper checkmark pattern:

Speaking to NFTstatistics.eth about why he's altering the images attached to Checks NFTs, Jack said

Jack also often posts cryptic tweets to accompany his metadata changes. 

CHECK out his Twitter, where you can see many examples of derivatives – and derivatives of derivatives – and deri- ...you get the idea.

And it looks like we're just getting started

This weekend, we saw the most profitable Checks derivative yet.

The open edition, Pepe Edition by Vincent Van Dough features the internet's most infamous amphibian, Pepe the frog, as a Checks grid.

Vincent Van Dough is an arguable whale – a big collector and mover within the art NFT world.

Pepe Edition was on sale for just 0.0041 ETH (yes, that's $6.90). But over 200,000 were sold...

Which means it took +$1.5 million in initial sales, more than 3x the revenue from the official Checks collection ...in one day. 😲

So of course, Jack had to change the original Checks metadata to match Van Dough's deriv.

Checks represents the relationship between Twitter and digital art.

That relationship is about constant momentum and evolution – so it makes sense that the appearance of Checks should continuously change, too.

Tweet of the day

On the web3 wire

Yuga Labs settle in a trademark court case 🦧The studio reached a settlement with BAYC copycat project RR/BAYC.

JP Morgan says investors are shifting away from crypto toward AI 🤖The annual e-Trading report from the bank says AI investments beat every other tech category.

The FBI seizes a Bored Ape 🚔The agency also seized a Doodles NFT and a luxury watch purchased with crypto.

Memeland did some expensive floor sweeping over the weekend 🧹

Memeland, the NFT ecosystem that's currently rolling out a pirate-themed metaverse, just bought 8 Bored Apes.

That's a casual $1,2 million weekend shopping trip.

Why? Well, for one thing, each of the Apes is wearing a sailor or captain's hat. So they're definitely the most sea-worthy apes at the yacht club.

Also, judging by a discord comment from Memeland's CEO, it looks like the studio is going to give away the Bored Apes to holders who've staked their Captainz NFTs.

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Meme of the day

One day, we'll look back and think, what did NFT stand for again?..

Ryan Carson's Flux fund looks DOA

Ryan Carson is a web3 figure that's been involved with a few NFT projects. He's currently the host of Daily Dose – probably the most popular NFT show on Twitter.

Over the weekend, Ryan caused a stir by dropping details of a web3 project called Flux.

Flux is a new investment fund set up by Carson, which (he claimed) has already attracted serious support and cash from some of web3s biggest influencers.

In a deleted tweet and now-offline website, Ryan laid out the deets.

Recovered here by @Gee_Gazza:

Flux wanted to raise $10 million from 100 investors – with a fifth of the spots already snapped up by people like Gary Vee, Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca, and Twitter influencer NFT God. 

To be eligible to join Flux, the website stated that investors need to invest a minimum of $160K.

But... 100 investors x $160K minimum investment ≠ $10 mill – so what gives?

The whole announcement started raising red flags amongst the Twitter community. 🚩

TL;DR, it looks like Ryan's claims weren't 100% true

Those big names that Ryan listed as onboard investors?

It turns out there had been no formal agreements, nothing signed, and very little money exchanged...

Naturally, there was much frustration expressed by those who felt their names were being hijacked to shill a project they had no (official) links to.

Furthermore, it seems that those who had already put money into Flex invested way less than the supposed $160K minimum buy-in.

Which means that potential investors coming after the Twitter announcement could have been spending a lot more for the same equity.

After the dust settled, Ryan walked back his words ...kinda.

In a Twitter AMA, Carson admitted that he "assumed some things that [he] shouldn’t have" and acknowledged his misstep.

But he also said that "It’s standard practice when raising money to secure a handful of early investors at a smaller check size." 🤷‍♀️

This actually isn't the first time Carson has been accused of unethical behavior in the space.

Have a great day! 👋

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